Latest update : 2016-04-29
Michel Platini, the suspended UEFA chief, arrived Friday at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the Swiss city of Lausanne to appeal his six-year FIFA ban for ethics violations, with his future in football hanging in the outcome.
"Today the match begins, a new match, the final, and we are all on the same page. I'm optimistic, we're going to win," Platini told reporters.
The stakes could not be higher for the 60-year-old former Juventus star and suspended head of UEFA, the European football confederation.
A favourable verdict and he will take his place in the stands at the
Stade de France for the Euro 2016 opener between hosts France and
Romania on June 10.
A negative verdict will mean he will be barred from entering the
national stadium, his glittering career in the sport having come to an
ignominious end.
The Frenchman has been sanctioned over an infamous two million Swiss
franc ($2 million, 1.8 million euro) payment he received in 2011 from
then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
FIFA's ethics committee in December banned both men from all football
activities for eight years. The suspensions were cut to six years in
February.
Both men insist they did nothing wrong and that the payment was part
of a legitimate oral contract tied to consulting work that Platini did
for FIFA between 1999 and 2002.
The affair has already cost him a shot at becoming head of world
football as he was forced to pull out of the race to become FIFA
president in an election won by his number two at UEFA, Gianni
Infantino.
UEFA has said it will not replace Platini until all his appeals are
exhausted, so if the former French star is successful at CAS he could
reclaim his job in time to preside over Euro 2016.
Platini's entourage is hoping for a decision "before May 3" when UEFA holds its congress in Budapest.
Blatter, who is due to testify Friday, has also appealed to CAS and is awaiting a date for his hearing.
'Last venue of appeal'
Friday's Lausanne-based tribunal will be in session until around 5:00 pm (1500 GMT).
"This is the last avenue of appeal," Platini's lawyer Thibaud D'Ales conceded to AFP.
The CAS consists of three legal experts, one each representing Platini and FIFA and a president.
Platini has chosen Yale and Harvard educated Swedish lawyer Jan
Paulsson, with world football's ruling body selecting Bernard Hanotiau
of Switzerland.
The hearing will be chaired by Luigi Fumagalli, a University of Milan-educated Italian international law expert.
As part of his defence Platini's legal team will produce an invoice
for the suspect payment in an attempt to prove there was nothing
untoward about the transaction.
"Five people from the offices of FIFA were involved in this payment,
which was processed by the Finance Committee and reported to the
Executive Committee. It is far from a hidden payment," said D'Ales.
Platini's name has also emerged in the Panama Papers, a leaked set of
11.5 million documents that provide detailed information about more
than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian corporate
service provider Mossack Fonseca.
But D'Ales denied this had any relevance to Friday's hearing.
"His fiscal situation was known by the Swiss authorities. This has nothing to do with it."
(AFP)
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